


Faith

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Family Feels, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Kidnapped Castiel (Supernatural), Major Character Death is NOT Cas Sam or Dean, Sam Hugs Cas, Sam Winchester to the Rescue, imprisoned castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 22:10:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20365918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: After Ketch kidnaps Cas, Sam comes for their angel.But Cas is trapped in a prison designed to hold an angel, and to make rescuing him as difficult, and dangerous, as possible.Sam needs Cas to have faith in him.  Because Cas is family, and Sam isn’t leaving without him.





	Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Cas’s prison is essentially a box, so if you are claustrophobic this is probably where you should stop.
> 
> Sam is brutal in defence of Cas in this story, and there are moments of hopelessness and an angsty recollection of the Winchesters’ childhood.
> 
> But there is a happy ending.

Somehow, after everything went south, and then Ketch returned, and wormed his way into Dean’s good books, Sam had always known it would end like this.

He knelt cautiously beside the Brit, watching the man’s blood bubble up between his lips. 

“Castiel,” he demanded. “Where is he?”

Ketch grinned, his lips stained red as he wheezed. “Oh...he’s...he’s here...but you’ll never…”. 

He coughed, an ugly hacking sound, and Sam grimaced as flecks of blood spattered his jeans.

Ketch’s eyes rolled back in his head, and Sam grabbed the man’s shirt, hauled him up, shook him hard.

He wasn’t checking out until Sam knew what had happened to their angel.

“Ketch!”

With an ominous gurgle, Ketch came around...for the last time, Sam was sure...and stared up at him.

“You’ll never...get to him…”

“What do you mean? Ketch. Ketch!”

But it was over. Ketch was a dead weight in Sam’s hold, and he let the body drop back to the floor.

_You’ll never get to him_.

But Cas was here, Sam knew that much, and Ketch clearly hadn’t learned a damn thing from the time he’d spent with them.

Nobody got between a Winchester and their family.

++

The factory, small, once privately owned, must have been converted on the fly by the Letters, Sam supposed; it was probably one of a number of facilities across the US, and the fact that they might never know just how many of these locations there were troubled him.

They might contain anything, but right then he was only concerned with what _this_ one did.

Their angel.

He was lucky; four rooms in, he found a door with a stout padlock, one it took him a couple of minutes to pick, and in that room he found Cas.

He stopped on the threshold, and stared in disbelief.

There was a glass case in the middle of the room, tall, just wide enough to give Cas enough room to sit down, if he hugged his knees to his chest, which was the position he was in then.

There were etchings in the glass, swirls and sharp angles, probably some kind of magical restraint system, because why else would Cas not simply have torn off the door and freed himself?

Sam looked around cautiously, but the rest of the room seemed normal; he couldn’t see any traps or other markings, so likely Ketch hadn’t expected them to find Cas.

Or he hadn’t expected them to be able to get him out, and Ketch’s words came back to him as he ran to the cabinet.

Cas was staring at his knees, looking lost and trapped and _scared_ and Sam was very glad, then, that Ketch had suffered before he’d died.

He cried out the angel’s name and Cas looked up sharply as Sam stopped in front of his prison.

“Sam?”

He seemed surprised, and Sam couldn’t blame him. It had been three days since Cas had vanished, and Ketch had probably been telling him all kinds of things to wear him down.

If he’d been trapped in there, on the back of all the other crap Cas had gone through over the past few months and years, he’d believe his position was hopeless too.

But he was here now.

“You okay? Did he hurt you?”

Cas shook his head. “No. Just...put me in here. I didn’t get loose until he’d finished locking the door...”

He looked down, and Sam saw a rope and a blindfold at the angel’s feet, and then Cas motioned to a series of tiny brass padlocks, six in total, that held the door closed.

Sam stared at them. They looked plain, ordinary, and the markings on the glass should have been enough to hold Cas prisoner; if they weren’t, something that looked like it had been bought from Home Depot wasn’t going to do the job.

So either the padlocks were just security against a human breaking Cas out, or there was more to them than met the eye.

“He say anything about them?” Sam eyed each lock carefully, looking for anything at all that might suggest they were more than they seemed.

Cas didn’t answer until Sam looked at him, and then the angel glanced away, as if suddenly ashamed.

“Just that even if you found me, you’d never get me out.”

And clearly, there was a part of Cas that believed it.

Sam put his hand on the glass, drew Cas’s attention back to him. He waited until Cas raised his hand, and pressed it where Sam’s was.

“Bet he didn’t think he’d end up dead, either,” Sam said. “I’m getting you out of here, Cas. Just hang on.”

++

The first lock was insultingly easy to pick. 

It didn’t even take Sam thirty seconds before it _snicked_ open, and then he moved onto the second. That one took a little longer; the small opening made working his lock pick inside tricky, but he managed, and then turned his attention to the third.

“So much for not getting you out,” he said. “He was probably trying to freak you out.”

But all the same, Sam was surprised. Ketch wasn’t one for empty threats or broken promises. He was as trustworthy as a snake, but if he said he was going to do something, he made it happen.

And he’d said Sam would never get Cas out, and yet he was already on the third padlock, so either he’d overestimated himself, and underestimated Sam, or…

He heard two firm clicks, and Cas said, quietly, “Sam.”

Sam looked back at the first two padlocks.

They were closed again.

“Fuck.”

Maybe Sam was the one who’d over and underestimated.

++

He started over twice, but there didn’t seem to be a way to open the first two padlocks faster than before, and he was still working the third when they closed up again.

He saw Cas’s shoulders slump, and rapped the glass. “Hey. It’s okay, we’ll figure it out.”

Cas nodded, but Sam knew that was for his benefit.

Ketch had clearly convinced Cas he’d be stuck in there forever.

Sam had other ideas. Since picking the locks wasn’t working, maybe something involving a little less finesse was required.

He put the lock pick away, and pulled his gun out of his belt.

“Cover your face,” he warned Cas, and then ejected the clip and emptied the chamber.

Cas turned away, bringing up his arm as directed, and Sam slammed the butt of his gun into the glass.

He did it again, and again, but not only did the glass not shatter, it didn’t even crack.

It wasn’t thick, or reinforced as far as Sam could tell. It just didn’t give, not at all, not even when he hit it so many times his wrist to his elbow started to ache.

Cas stared forlornly at the walls of his prison and then to Sam.

“Sam. Maybe you should…”

Sam glared at him. “No. Don’t even say it. I’m not leaving you here because there’s a way to fix this. Even if I had to get a damn trolley in here and stick this thing on it, we are getting out of here together.”

Cas smiled, but Sam could tell it was forced.

He reloaded his gun, and put it away, but he had another idea. Cas watched him take out his knife, and run his fingers along the markings on the glass.

“Let’s see if we can break one of these up. Maybe then you can just force your way out.”

That, as it turned out, was a mistake.

He drew the tip of his knife across one of the sigils, but the only effect it had was on Cas.

He dropped like somebody had poleaxed him, wedged tightly into a corner, where he jerked like there was an electric current running through him.

His eyes stared fixed on the clear ceiling of the box, and Sam yelled his name frantically until the fit subsided.

Even then, it took a few minutes for him to come around, and he lay there panting.

“Just…. Just don’t move, okay?” Sam quickly put his knife away, and dropped down into a crouch so he was level with the angel. “Cas, I’m sorry, I never meant…”

Cas nodded, but even that gesture was weak, and Sam wondered if there were any other booby traps to be triggered thanks to Ketch.

But he didn’t dare not try, because the alternative was leaving Cas trapped in here.

“Cas…”. He didn’t want to say it, that he had to keep going, but there wasn’t any other choice.

Cas started to push himself up, using the walls of the box for support, but Sam rapped the glass to stop him. “No, no, just...stay down there.”

He didn’t want to add that, in case he dumbassed his way into setting off any other safeguards, it might be better for Cas to be down there already.

Cas sank back into the corner, looking wedged and sore and uncomfortable, but he seemed to settle, and watched as Sam straightened up and pulled out his lock pick again.

It looked like there was only one way to get Cas out, and that was finding how to pick six simple but apparently cursed brass padlocks.

As he tried the first one again, Sam swore he could hear Ketch laughing.

++

After another few failed attempts, Sam switched it up. He started on the second, then the third, but before he could go back to the first, the second had closed up again.

So he did it differently the next time around; started at the bottom, then worked his way up, in case it was just a matter of the order in which the locks were opened.

It didn’t change the outcome. The sixth padlock barely had to be touched before it opened up, the fifth took the longest of the ones Sam had already tried, and the fourth wasn’t far behind, but by then six had already closed again.

Sam had never wanted to scream so much in his life, but he was conscious of the fact that Cas was watching him, trying to trust that Sam could get him out, and the last thing he needed was to shattered the angel’s fragile hope.

“You know,” he said, and he forced a grin that Cas probably saw right through. “When we get back to the bunker, and Dean’s mobile again, we should take that holiday.”

Cas was resting his head against the glass. “A holiday?”

Sam shook his head. “Right. You were..”

_Gone, because Dean broke you with four words and made you think his life would be less painful if you weren’t in it_.

“We were just a little drunk,” he said, and that was as smooth as a broken road, but anyway, “and Dean and I were thinking about this little beachside town, down in Mexico, that we ended up in one time with Dad.

“It was nothing special, you know? Just a crappy little hotel and a couple of places to eat and the ocean, but Dad was laid up, and so we ended up staying there a few weeks until he was back on his feet.”

Sam didn’t realise he was smiling at the memory of it until Cas said, softly, “It sounds special. It made you happy.”

Sam wondered if it was just that Cas knew him, or if he was broadcasting good vibes, but either way he realised Cas was right.

He’d downplayed it, because what was a stupid little town that was probably just a few shacks, and a diner that the health inspectors would shut down, to an angel?

It probably wouldn’t even be that much to them, if they went back now. Things were always different to kids, especially kids who’d never seen the beach before, or had a break from being hungry and armed and scared.

Cas drew his attention by touching the glass, and Sam looked away from the locks and down at the hurt angel.

“It was important to you,” Cas said, and Sam figured he’d been sending out more than just vibes. “And that makes it important to me. Besides, anywhere you are…”

He trailed off, his eyes closing, and Sam slapped the glass hard, suddenly terrified.

“Cas. Cas!”

The angel looked at him, but his eyes looked tired and heavy.

“I think…. I think whatever happened before has weakened me.”

“So you just rest,” Sam said. “Cas, I will get you out of here.”

“Sam, this isn’t your fault.”

Wasn’t it? Dean was always their guardian, and he was hurt which meant it was Sam’s job to keep this family safe, and now Cas was trapped in a box that Sam couldn’t get him out of, and maybe it was killing him, and Sam was letting another member of his family down.

He was the one who’d sided with Ketch to begin with. Trusted him, and Mick, and if he’d just listened to Dean at the start, maybe they wouldn’t be standing here now.

“Sam,” Cas said, but he sounded so weak.

“No,” Sam said. He turned his attention back to the padlocks, worked furiously at each one, in a different order this time, determined to find out how to get them off and get Cas out. “We’re doing it. We’re going to that town. And I’m teaching you to swim.”

“Sam.”

His eyes were burning; the locks were getting hard to see, and he drew his sleeve angrily across his face. “And Dean, he’ll teach you the fine art of how to survive multiple rejections because he is not as charming as he thinks he is, especially when he’s mixing shots and beer.”

“Sam.”

“Dammit, Cas, no! I am not leaving, I am not giving up. I’m not leaving you behind _again_.”

“I know,” Cas said. He pointed to the nearest lock. “And I know how to get them off.”

++

After, Sam supposed he would have figured it out eventually, if he’d been able to stay calm and hadn’t had a hurt, weakened angel to worry about.

But eventually would have been too long, and he was grateful that Cas had watched him trying to solve Ketch’s twisted little puzzle.

And noticed that, no matter how many times Sam tried, even though it should have been faster on each attempt, it took him the exact same time to open each of the individual locks that it had before.

Score one for angels and their inbuilt chronometers.

All that left was for Sam to work out, with Cas’s help, which lock took the longest to open, because it stayed opened for the exact same amount of time.

Which meant opening them in that order was, ironically, the key; by the time Sam had picked the last lock, the first was just about to click shut again, but it didn’t, and then they were all open and Sam almost tore the door off its hinges wrenching it open.

He wasn’t as gentle with Cas as he should have been, when he reached in to grab the angel and haul him out, but he had visions of the door slamming shut again before he could get him, and the locks changing order, or just fusing shut permanently, and Cas never getting free.

But that didn’t happen; he ended up with his arms full of an angel, cushioned on top of him, them both staring at each other, and then back to the glass prison.

Cas sat up slowly, easing off Sam, and then they both helped each other to their feet.

Sam tugged Cas into his arms, held on long enough to make the angel squirm a little.

He let him go, then, held him at arms’ length.

“You okay?’

Cas nodded. He didn’t look anywhere near as fragile as before, but Sam was sure this little experience would take some getting over.

And that a holiday in a certain small Mexican town would help.

++

It did.

All of them.


End file.
